One of the reasons was because I had a blast racing the Formula racecar my college buddies and I built to do 0-60 MPH in 3.2 seconds and pull over 1 lateral G. (For the non-engineers, that means it took turns faster than a Z06 Corvette.)

It was about that time that a little software program taught me the power of being wrong.

You see, my responsibilities for our Formula SAE racecar as Engine Team Leader were to make sure our car was fast AND reliable. (Learning the reliable part was a humbling experience but a story for another day.)

Dyno run of Kettering's 2004 FSAE Car - I'm on the right in the backwards hat holding the laptop.

At the start I knew very little about engine design as my upperclassmen Chris, Tim, and Jason could fully attest. I bombarded them constantly with questions. I also raided our school library to find anything I could about engine operation.

My university made some very sophisticated software available to me to simulate how various changes to the engine would result in more or less power.

Based on the help of my more senior team members, and the books I’d been devouring, I now had enough basic theories about engine design that I could start plugging various design parameters into the software.

You see, the way the software worked was a bit tricky… You couldn’t just say, “Make me the most powerful 600cc engine possible,” and let the software spit out the answers.

You had to actually tell the software exactly which part of the engine to change. So, for instance, you might have to change the size of the exhaust to determine which diameter would result in the best performance. (FYI, bigger is not always better.)

Think of it this way… Right now you’re sitting at your computer. Let’s say it starts working slowly and web pages aren’t loading up real well. Well there’s no software out there that will just “fix” that problem.

It might be your web browser, the website’s servers, your internet connection, a virus, spyware, or another program running in the background and you have to try each one to see which is causing the problem. It might even be several problems at once.

That’s kind of how you design a car engine. You know you want it to go faster, you just have to figure out which areas to tweak to speed it up.

Ok, so I’d put in these various parameters for intake and exhaust design and then the software would test out one configuration and then report back to me how much power and torque that particular configuration would produce.

Over time I’d run hundreds and hundreds of different configurations to find the best combination.

And here’s the thing…

My idea of what should have produced the best combination of performance was often wrong.

Now as our Team Leader, Travis, used to say, “we’re engineers not scientists.” Which meant, we work in the real world not a perfectly controlled lab, so my computer simulations weren’t the final word – they were just the starting point.

To get the full picture, we actually had to get an engine, strap it onto a dynamometer (device used to measure engine power kind of like you use a scale to measure your weight), and build a test rig to test our simulated ideas in the real world.

You know what happened?

The real world taught me once again the beauty of being wrong. The dyno testing showed that some things that worked really well on the computer (like a large intake plenum) had serious limitations (like horrible throttle response) in the real world.

Ultimately the result of being wrong, admitting it, and then quickly moving forward was a phenomenal engine package.

Our primary race was an autocross-style road course for 30 laps that required even power delivery over a large RPM range.

At competition when we were on the dyno testing our car in front of the other teams, a bystander remarked, “that’s not a torque curve, that’s a torque plateau!”

That was EXACTLY what we were looking for!

That appreciation for being wrong and getting better because of it, is exactly how my internet marketing business approaches website design.

1. Strong Base theory with the Marketing RoadMap – Just like I had to know what parameters to put into the engine software, marketing requires an equally strong base on how people think and interact with websites, Google Ads, and search engines.
2. Testing at every step in the marketing process – On the car engine we tweaked every item air touched from entering the engine till leaving the muffler. In internet marketing, we test and optimize every step from the words your target customer is typing into Google, to the ad we show them, to the page they land on, to the places they click on the landing page, to the contact form that generates the lead. Every place your prospect visits is monitored, tested, and improved.
3. Real world feedback - The first month that we launch a new website is the absolute worst for performance. Why? Because at that point everything is theory. Some of it can be based on what has worked in the same industry in other parts of the country however no 2 markets are the same so what works in one city very often doesn’t work as well in another one. So we start with our best guess at what will work and then slowly but continuously improve. For your market we learn exactly what is important to website visitors by analyzing search terms, clicks, and online surveys.
4. Mistake Loving – Maybe I’m not quite as arrogant as I may have been at 21, however we do know our process is the absolute best available. The way we know this is that we openly admit when we make mistakes. When we make a mistake, we analyze WHY our theory was wrong and then we improve your website or advertising the next time around. We even tell you what we learned so you can apply the same lessons into your offline marketing.

Maybe some advertisers, web designers, or internet marketers you’ve chatted with believe they just know what will work to convert your website visitors to customers.

Well don’t be too hard on them.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I used to think I knew what would work too.

Now I know better.

To your mistake-loving success, Bryan

P.S. If your business could use some help improving internet lead-generation and you appreciate our unique approach, contact us at Optimized-Marketing.com.

One of the most common things I would hear is, “I like this website” or “I don’t like that website.”

When I’d ask a business owner about his own website and whether he was happy with it, the majority of the time the response was, “Yeah, I like it, it looks pretty good.” Or, “I like it but it could use some updating. It looks outdated.”

My question was actually a setup because his opinion about his own website is irrelevant.

That’s kind of harsh for me to say, right?

After he would tell me his opinion on his own or another website I’d ask, “Do your customer’s or prospects care about what you think looks good?”

It was kind of a verbal punch in the nose so I had to repeat the question almost every single time.

In case you think that’s a trick question, let me make it simple.

NO – Your customers don’t give a hoot about your opinion of your own website.

Your opinion or preference or feelings about your website don’t matter a lick to the visitors who come to your site. You know what does matter? Their own opinions. All they care about is themselves and quite frankly, you’re the same way.

The problem is actually worse then that… Your opinion is not only not important, it could be outright harmful to your website’s performance.

Why?

Because you know too much and yet you don’t know enough.

You have the “curse of knowledge” so you already know all the jargon and slang and vernacular of your business. When you look at your website you understand exactly what each button and drop-down and description means. To you it makes perfect sense.

Beyond that you may not even be the target consumer. In other words, if you’re a 55-year old married male and your target market is 30-45 year old mothers, no matter how hard you try, you can’t see the world exactly through the eyes of those mothers.

So you know too much about your own product, but don’t know enough about your target customer to put yourself in her shoes.

So how do I know if it’s a good website?

There are only 2 ways to determine a great website.

1. The conversion rate. Conversion can be defined in a number of ways but is generally local contacts divided by local visitors. In other words if you had 100 visitors and 5 contacted you, then the conversion rate would be 5%.
2. Test and optimize the site. If you want to improve your conversion rate, you need to setup tests throughout your website to determine exactly what will catch your visitors’ attention and get them to take action.

So the next time someone asks you if you like your website, feel free to say,  ”I love it!”

Then when they ask you why, be sure to say, “because we have a conversion rate nearly double the industry average.”

By-the-way, this is entirely true of all marketing. Unfortunately, testing which TV or Radio ad is resonating better with your target market is hard to do. So test out your marketing concepts and ideas online first, then take them offline.

It will save you a lot of time and money and will absolutely get you better results.

To your success in learning what really matters to your customers, Bryan

P.S. If you need help using your website to learn what motivates your customers, contact us at Optimized-Marketing.com and we’ll either take over your current site or create a new one for you. Either way, your conversion rate will consistently improve.

You need to be #1 on Google…

I can get you contacts for $34 per contact…

Our Click-Thru-Rate is 5%…

So what? What exactly does any of that mean to your business?

In online marketing, numbers like that can easily be manipulated, tweaked, and adjusted to basically make you hear what you want to hear… Gasp! I know. Shocking, isn’t it?

So how do you get down to the brass tacks and know which marketer is actually going to perform the best for your business? Well, you need a bit of an online plan and strategy for Google Adwords and SEM. You also need to understand a bit about how Google Adwords marketing, bidding, and prices work…

For starters, you need to determine if you would be happy with 1 contact/week for $35. Or you’d prefer 5 contacts/week for $500 ($100 each). Until you answer that question (that your Google marketer should have asked you), you’ll have no idea if your online marketing is actually doing what you want.

Let’s consider a few examples…

It’s relatively easy to be #1 on Google. If the Average Cost-per-Click for a particular word is $5, then bid $10. Voila! You’re at the top. But that doesn’t really tell us if we are actually benefiting from being #1. Here’s why…

Whether your #1 or #10 your website hasn’t changed, right? Your website will have a certain conversion rate. The average for most small businesses is 2-3%.  That means if you send 100 people to your site, 2 or 3 will contact you.

Let’s be generous and say in the scenario above, your website has a 4% conversion rate so for your 100 clicks you paid $1,000 and you got 4 leads at a cost per lead of $250.

For some businesses that might be well worth it. If you’re selling products and services worth 10′s of thousands of dollars, a $250 lead cost could be a real bargain.

However… Maybe that’s a bit high… And instead you decide to bid $5.00 per click… So this time you only get 50 clicks and 2 leads for a cost per lead of $125. Same keyword… Same market… but we just dropped your cost per lead 100%.

BUT… You missed out on 2 good leads in your market.

Let’s take it even further and say you decide to bid only $2.50 per click… You get 25 clicks which generates 1 lead at a cost of $62.50…

Hot Dog what a bargain! A lead for only $62.5, now we’re talking!

However… You’re only getting access to 1/4 of the POTENTIAL leads in your market.

So are you happy to get “cheap” leads and give the majority of the rest to your competitors? Or can you afford to pay to dominate your market and get all the leads possible?

Now that you understand that, can you see how someone telling you you need to be #1 on Google or that you can get contacts for just $35 a piece isn’t the whole story?

Unfortunately, that was the simple part… The cost per lead and ROI for marketing is never that simple with Google Adwords (or any marketing) because there are hundreds of other factors to take into account. Google’s algorithms are a bit more complex than just pay more and get to a higher position…

In fact, the guy bidding $2.50/click can actually get a higher position than the one bidding $10/click if his ads are more “relevant” according to Google… And that’s where things really start to get interesting.

That’s also why it is almost always cheaper to hire an SEM specialist than to do it yourself or work with a one-size-fits-all, we-can-do- anything marketing agency.

The entire approach to SEM is completely different than any other form of marketing and ultimately your cost/contact should be going down each month while your actual contacts should be going up!

Let me repeat that… This month and next month it’s going to cost you the same amount to run a TV ad. You’ll have the same market reach and you’ll probably even get about the same results because you’re showing the same TV spot… If anything, the effectiveness of the TV ad will diminish over time as it saturates the market.

Not so with online marketing… Every month you should be getting better… Which increases your relevance and drops your costs while targeting the searchers who are more inclined to actually act.

There’s no other form of marketing like it. It requires a unique approach and a unique Google Expert to know how to harness the power.

To add just one last piece of complexity to this puzzle, Search Engine Optimization is also a significant part of your online marketing strategy. Why?

Because 75% of searches click on the Organic (SEO) results instead of the Paid (SEM) results. And that number varies proportionately to the education level of your buyers. For instance, xtudies have shown that searches with Phd’s click on paid ads only 1-2% of the time.

Disagree? Let me know in the comments. I publish my ideas to open myself up for criticism so please chime in!

To your Google marketing success, Bryan

P.S. If you’re interested in putting an Online Marketing Strategy together for your service-based business, get started today.

P.P.S. Some marketers seem to be afraid of educating their clients on the inner, top-secret workings of Google. I’ve never really agreed with that philosophy so here’s an interesting infographic on how Google makes money.

Not unlike my clients however, sometimes more “important” things come up. When I do take the time to work ON instead of IN one of my businesses nothing is more energizing! Let me explain…

As a mechanical engineer I come from the world of, “put in your hours and get your paycheck.” It’s a fairly well established quid pro quo in the professional world. It’s the hallmark of a “job.” What makes owning a business different is that you have the ability to destroy that paradigm. As a matter of fact, the more you work ON your business the less you’ll have to work IN it. The key to this is one simple word – LEVERAGE.

Working ON your business is defined as the time you spend creating leverage in your business. Leverage is doing ever more with ever less and falls into 2 primary categories for business owners.

1. Team Members
2. Systems

Everything you can leverage in a business comes down to one of those 2 areas. Either you hire someone to do something so you don’t have to, or you create a procedure, script, or checklist to pass along knowledge so other people can use it. Software, and technology in general, would be a systematized solution.

Today I started an Auto-Responder Email Campaign that got me giddy with excitement about leveraging my business. If you’re not familiar with an auto-responder it’s simply a series of automated email responses to an inquiry. So if you go to a website and it says, “Enter your email address to learn how to make a guaranteed $1 million in the next 30 days”, most likely they’re putting you on an auto-responder. No one is personally responding to your request, even though the goal is to make you feel like it’s very personal. Reference my blog on conversational marketing.

The website owner wrote a series of emails days, weeks, or months ago that automatically market to you to build a relationship. The beauty of this is that you can build a direct, relevant, and personal relationship simultaneously with dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people.

Mailchimp.com, Aweber.com, ConstantContact.com, or InfusionSoft.com automatically send those emails to potential clients at pre-scheduled intervals. The emails will discuss your products or services for which they requested more details. Like a great website will generate customers around the clock, this is all done while you sleep or lounge at the beach.

An auto-responder email campaign is just one simple example of a System that helps you leverage yourself however, can you see why this gets me so excited? While I’m out cruising around the country on my motorcycle, I’m automatically building relationships and creating future clients by walking them through my “sales process” in exactly the way I want to.

Now if you come from the online world of sales and marketing, this blog is laughably outdated. Auto-responders have been around for years after all. However, in the brick-and-mortar world of small business do you know how many businesses I’ve encountered that use auto-responders as part of their on or offline marketing? None. Sure, everyone has a website these days, but very few business owners know how to fully engage the power of the web. Do you?

Since the vast majority (probably over 95%) of people who visit your website leave without taking any action, think how much business you’re missing by not actively engaging visitors. With a well-written auto-responder campaign you become THE expert in the visitor’s mind and he stops shopping around. You become a trusted advisor and friend. It really is that powerful.

This is why working ON your business is so important. It’s regularly dedicating time to leverage your operations by replacing a Person or System with work you would otherwise have to do.

One last thought as you wipe the spittle from your lips because you’ve been frothing at the mouth with excitement… When determining what work in your business requires a human or systematize solution, the simple answer is EVERYTHING. That’s right, ideally the business shouldn’t be dependent on you, the owner, for anything. It should continue running smoothly with or without you.

Just remember, systematize the routine and humanize the exception.

To your vastly leveraged success, Bryan

P.S. Navigating the waters of auto-responders is not without its squalls so if you need some help getting started, shoot me an email.

1. Traffic
2. Website
3. Commitment

We then discussed the 3 primary ways to get Traffic (Search Engines, Online Ads/Google Adwords, Viral Marketing) and of course reviewed videos explaining some basics of Viral Marketing, Search Engine Optimization and optimizing your Google Adwords campaigns. We most recently looked at some great tips for your website in my last blog.

The final piece to the puzzle and the item we’ll be reviewing today is the Commitment. The commitment is simply the visitors commitment to buy from you or to contact you for more information if you’re not selling any products online. Obviously we’ve been talking about the sales aspect of your website, not how it caters to current customers, so with that in mind, everything you do to your website should be geared towards that goal. Here are a few pointers for achieving that.

1. Setup your website layout and design according to my last blog.
2. Use the 4.5 points of marketing to address their questions and concerns.
3. Offer them something for free in exchange for their email address.

Since the first 2 points were addressed in the last post, we’re solely going to focus on the third.

When buying a product, the primary reason people use the internet is to educate themselves by reading information about the product or service they are interested in. They may also be looking for the best value, but without knowing what makes a product or service valuable they’ll first have to educate themselves on that product or service. This is where you have the opportunity to set yourself apart. If you’re an online retailer, the best reason for someone giving you their email address would be to receive email notifications of special sales and promotions. However, if you’re a service or knowledge-based business, they can have many reasons for dealing with you. A few thoughts your prospect may have to consider would be:

1. Your level of expertise – Can you fix their problem the right way the first time?
2. Your history – If your business is less than 5 years old chances are you’re not going to be here in another 5 years.
3. Your prices – Are they fair and reasonable for the services you deliver?
4. Your credibility – What do your customers say/think about you?
5. Your guarantee – If you turn out to not do what you told me, what do I stand to lose?

Now your website can do a great job of addressing most of that, however you need to hold something back. You need to not let the cat out of the bag on your expertise right away. Why? After all, that may be the most important thing to your client and what they NEED to know about you before making a decision. Exactly. Because of that, if setup correctly, your potential client will gladly give you their name and email address in exchange for you sharing some of your expertise with them. Read that sentence again and let it sink in for a minute. That’s your hook. If the rest of your website is setup in such a way to address the other 4 items (and any others you may determine your prospects want to know) then they’ll trust that you are an expert.

This is where you utilize an “opt-in”. An Opt-in is where your visitor opts-into your mailing list or newsletter. Obviously the key to getting someone to decide to sign up for your newsletter is to offer them your expertise for free in return. So once they opt-in, you email them a PDF or direct them to a web page where they can download a PDF providing your expertise. (Mailchimp.com can get you started with this for free.) This would be in the form of an article, whitepaper, special report, expose’, or research paper addressing your expertise. For instance:

1. For a law firm – “The top 10 cost-saving questions you need to ask before putting down a retainer for a lawyer.”
2. For an accountant – “The top 10 things your accountant missed on your last tax return.”
3. For a plumber – “How to know if your plumber is more interested in your pipes or your wallet.”
4. For a an auto-body shop – “The quickest way to tell if your body-shop repair estimate is accurate or if the body-man has been spending too much time in the paint booth.”
5. For a photographer – “The 5 things a photographer must do to get the best picture of you – that have nothing to do with the camera!”

You get the idea. The goal is to provide a topic that is relevant and important to your visitors. Here are a few guidelines:

1. Make it generic – Don’t say “top 10 reasons to do business with us”. No one is going to give you their email in exchange for a sales pitch. They’re looking for a “free lunch” by learning from your expertise.
2. Set it up to paint a picture that only your business fits – This is, of course, the power of this sort of marketing. It allows you to define exactly what the perfect lawyer, cpa, plumber, beauty salon, etc. should look like. Make sure only your business can fit that definition. This is part of the way you can build value to demonstrate that your prices are higher but your overall value is unmatched.
3. Provide some real expertise – We’re all smart enough to see right through a thinly veiled sales pitch. This is the kind of thing that will help them decide to NOT do business with you.
4. Make it simple – Lay it out with a list or graphs and make it conversational. Write this copy, as you should with all marketing copy, as if you’re sitting across the table from this person explaining to them exactly what you’re talking about.
5. Promise not to sell their email – Unless of course you do plan to sell their email. But I don’t really recommend that.

Now some of the great internet marketers have learned that providing a PDF in exchange for an email only gets you so far. Instead they setup automatic email responder campaigns with the help of sites like aweber.com. This basically tells your visitor they’re going to receive some level of your expertise once per week for the next 4 weeks or something along those lines. This keeps you in touch with them constantly and helps you get closer to Jay Conrad Levinson’s claim that it takes 9 communications to make a prospect a customer. This is the reason gathering an email address is so important to begin with. If Levinson’s research is accurate, your chances of gaining a customer because of one visit to your website are pretty slim. However, if they visit your website and then you keep in constant contact with them via email, now the tide has turned in your favor.

To your success in gaining a commitment with your website, Bryan

Chichen Itza - the 7th Wonder of the World. Is your website this complex?

1. Traffic
2. Website
3. Commitment

We then discussed the 3 primary ways to get Traffic (Search Engines, Online Ads/Google Adwords, Viral Marketing) and of course reviewed videos explaining some basics of Viral Marketing and Search Engine Optimization for Small Business. We then looked at some of the best tips for optimizing your Google Adwords campaigns in my last blog.

This time around we’re going to take a closer look at your website. From my last 3 blogs you have a lot of great ways to get people to your website, but how do you know your website is any good? Let’s break this into 3 sections:

1. Goal of your website
2. Content
3. Layout
4. Tracking or Analytics

1. Goal of your website – This is so important to understand as I think most people never even consider this point. For most people they have a website because they’re supposed to have a website and then they leave it at that. That’s not at all true, the goal of your website is to sell something! Since my small business is service-based, my goal is to sell an appointment or, in other words, get the potential customer to contact us. For other businesses the goal is to sell a product directly online. If you fail to sell your product or appointment via your website your secondary goal should be to collect your visitor’s contact information for future marketing. We’ll discuss basic ways to do that in the future.

2. Content – Since your goal is to sell your visitor something, the content of your website should be geared to do just that. How do you accomplish that? You answer all the questions that might prevent them from buying from you. That’s what your content MUST do if your customer is ever going to make a commitment to purchase from you. Here are the basic points you must cover in any marketing to earn a customer. I call these the 4.5 points of successful marketing:

1. What problem can you fix for me? – Address and detail their problems to demonstrate that you understand their needs.
2. Is your solution the best? – Explain how your solution to their problem is the best solution available.
3. Why should I work with your company? – Compare your business to your competition to show how ONLY your business can meet their needs and requirements.
4. Why do I need your solution now? – Dollarize their potential losses by not having your solution so they understand that every month, week, day or hour that they wait they’re losing money by not working with you.

4.5. What am I risking? – Make the process of either buying from you or contacting you for an appointment as risk-free as possible.

The biggest negative business owners point out to me when addressing these points is that now their competitors can see their whole “sales pitch”. My response to that is firstly, so what? They’re going to find it one way or another anyway. Secondly, if your business and product can’t highlight enough advantages, benefits, and differences to make it IMPOSSIBLE for your competitors to steal your sales pitch then you need to go back to the writing board and come up with better copy and/or a better business plan.

3. Layout – In the online world you basically have 4 types of websites:

1. Complex – You have graphics and videos and Flash programming and javascript drop-down menus and somewhere amongst the entertainment you may even address some of your customer’s questions or needs.
2. Simple – You list your business name, phone, address, a short About Us, a Contact Us page and maybe even a bit about your products. These websites do nothing more than provide contact information for people who already want to do business with you. Most visitors, however, don’t care about you until you educate them on how you can make their life better.
3. Corporate – Every major corporation has one of these. It has all the standard pages for Contact Us, About Us, Investor Relations, Products, Store-Finder, etc. etc. It answers a few questions of the 4.5 points of successful marketing but often is bordering on the too Complex described above.
4. Long-winded – These are those scrolling 1-page sales pitch websites that you just hate to visit. However the truth is, these are some of the best tracked, best-designed, best-selling websites in existence. Millions upon millions of dollars in internet fortunes have been made through this style of website. These designers have often done their homework and tweaked their website sales-machines to perfection so don’t write these off as unprofessional or ineffective. An unprofessional website is the one that doesn’t generate sales – nothing more.

So how do you optimize your site to generate the best results without getting too far off-track like the site descriptions above?

1. Make it EASY to contact your business. Their should be a phone number, email, and/or contact us button on every page so that it’s visible at all times.
2. Never make anything more than 2 menu’s deep (unless you sell millions of products). This is a lesson learned from the “Long-winded” guys. You can’t direct people through the 4.5 points of successful marketing if you have too many clicks. People want their questions answered right away and in a logical progression and if they have to click through more than 2 menus deep to get those answers they’re much more likely to leave.
3. Relate your pages to each other. I was just searching for car parts for my 2008 Mitsubishi Evolution X on a performance parts website. The website had some awesome Youtube videos of their 10 second Evo with a listing of the parts they sell and used on that car. Only problem was the list of parts didn’t link back to the spot where I can buy the parts. After 30 minutes of navigating around I’m still not sure if the parts I found were the same ones they used on their own car! The point is, don’t make every visitor have to go back to your home page to find what they need. If you reference another product, idea, or reason to do business with you on an individual page, you better have a link to your reference.
4. Provide testimonials. You can say all you want about your solutions and business however that never has the same effect as third-party testimonials from your customers. If your website doesn’t have those, start gathering them right away. Gathering testimonials is literally as simple as asking for them so be sure to ask!

4. Tracking or Analytics – Since we’re all looking for the simple answer let me give you just that. The most important performance number for your website is your conversion rate. This is the number of customers created divided by the number of visitors. In other words, if you have 100 visitors and 4 bought from you (or scheduled an appointment for a service-based business), your conversion rate would be 4% (4/100). Some benchmarks for conversion rates by industry are available courtesy of Fireclick.com where the current internet average conversion rate is 4.3%. It’s also helpful to talk to other people in your specific industry if possible. As a point of comparison, my conversion rate in the 4th quarter of 2009 was 6.5% for my local service-based business. In a future blog we’ll discuss ways to really analyze your Google Analytics stats to determine how to improve your conversion rate.

To your website’s selling success, Bryan

P.S. Here’s another short article about website design by Barry A. Densa at Melissadata.com that I think is very appropriate.

In my last 2 blogs we reviewed the 3 pieces of your small business’ online presence:

1. Traffic
2. Website
3. Commitment

We then reviewed the 3 primary ways to get Traffic and of course reviewed videos explaining some basics of Viral Marketing and Search Engine Optimization for Small Business:

1. Search Engines
2. Online Ads
3. Viral Marketing

This time around we’re going to take a closer look at online advertising and, in particular, Google Adwords so that if your website isn’t perfectly optimized it still pops up as the answer to searches by effective Google marketing.

Firstly, there are thousands of website to advertise on so why focus on Google? That answer is quite simple. Google is the internet search juggernaut. Over 80% of internet searches are performed on Google so why focus on the 20% when you can cover 80% in one fell swoop?

Secondly, this is not a tutorial on setting up a Google Adwords account and campaign. It’s very simple to do, however so if you’re looking for some hand-holding check out Google’s resources.

Finally, this post is about getting the best results out of your Google Adwords campaign. If you’re currently paying someone else to handle all of your Adwords marketing, I highly recommend you either take it over yourself or at the very least verify that they’re applying the principles I’m about to cover.

If at all possible, as a small business owner, leader, or manager you really should be handling your adwords campaigns yourself and here’s why:

1. It’s not that hard to get started. As a matter of fact, in a lot of respects it’s probably a lot easier than most other forms of marketing. Have you ever tried to produce a TV commercial? Now that takes work!
2. It’s the future. Let’s face it. Google is still growing and online marketing is here to stay. From my talks with marketers in TV, Radio, and Newspaper all of those mediums are in very difficult circumstances right now. Why? Because the marketing isn’t targeted. Broadcast or print advertising blankets thousands to millions of people of which a very small percentage “might” be interested in your product. Google Adwords allows you to only show your ads to people searching for your product (if you know what you’re doing). It’s much better bang for your buck!
3. You’ll learn lessons that can be applied to all of your marketing. Things like: which promotions draw the most attention and which headline phrases elicit the best response. Heck, even which words people are using to find you. This information can then be carried over to your email marketing, direct marketing, broadcast marketing and everything else because then you’ll know which headline will give you the best response.

Though I do claim that Google Adwords marketing isn’t that hard to get started, it can be quite complex to become a top Google Adwords marketing expert. Lucky for you, your small business competitors aren’t even remotely savvy on Adwords, let alone master marketers, so all you need to know are the top most important pieces that I’m about to cover to set yourself apart.

So here are the most important parts to your Adwords campaign that you must implement:

1. Split test
2. Mimic the keywords in your ad
3. Direct them to a page that answers their question
4. Use broad-match, match phrase, match term, and negative keywords
5. Track your results

That’s it. Five relatively simple pieces to becoming an Adwords guru. Let’s look at each in more detail.

Split-testing – This is the same thing in the online world as it is in the physical world. In the physical world of marketing this would be like creating 1 direct mail marketing letter with 2 different headlines and determining which one had a better response. With Adwords this means you setup 2 different ads at all times for each Ad Group. The 2 ads will alternate and after a few dozen people clicking on your ad, you’ll know which one generates a higher Click-Thru Rate (the number of people who click on your ad/the number of people who see your ad). A high click-thru rate is very important because the higher percentage of people who click on your ad the cheaper your marketing will be. Part of Google’s formula for determining your cost-per-click is to include your Click-Thru Rate. For instance if your ad has a click-thru rate of 1% and you pay $2/click, your competitor with a click-thru rate of .5% will have to pay $4/click. Google does this because they want to offer the most relevant content so the more people who like your ad the more relevant they consider your content. Your goal is not more impressions. It’s more clicks with less impressions.

Mimic the keywords in your ad - This simply means that your ad must answer the question to the search someone typed in. For instance, if you’re selling clothing for dogs, and you purchased a keyword for “Dog Sweaters”, your ad better have the words “Dog Sweaters” in it somewhere. If you also bought the keyword for “dog collars” you better show a completely different ad touting “dog collars”. In Google Adwords there is an organizational hierarchy that includes a few pieces:

1. Your account
2. Campaigns – for budget, language, and territory restrictions
3. Ad Groups – primarily for grouping similar keywords
4. Ads – to split-test 2 ads against each other

Your account can have multiple campaigns, campaigns can have multiple ad groups, and each ad group can have multiple ads. For each set of similar keywords, you’ll have a single Ad Group. For instance the following keywords may all be in one Ad Group: “dog collar”, “dog collars’, “decorative dog collars”, “fashionable dog collars”, “unique dog collars”. Keep in mind that Ad Groups will have 2 ads to split-test headlines, promotions, benefits, domain names, or features. You will then create another Ad Group for your keywords related to: “dog sweaters”, “dog sweater”, “pink dog sweaters”. Again, each group of similar keywords requires its own Ad Group with 2 ads competing for the highest click-thru rate.

Direct them to a page that answers their search - People search for answers so whatever you do, don’t direct your traffic to your home page. If they search for “dog sweaters” then send them to the page that talks about your high-quality dog sweaters. Don’t send them to your home page which they now have to take time to navigate to find more information on dog sweaters. In your hiearchy, this will be done at the Ad Groups level. Both ads that you’re split testing within an Ad Group should point to the same page on your website. If you need a different Ad Group to answer the customers’ search, you need a different landing page on your website.

Use broad-match, exact-match, exact-term and negative keywords – Your main reason for doing this is to only show your ads to people who are actually interested in what you have to offer. This will in turn drive down your cost-per-click and improve your click-thru rates. Let’s look at each one:

1. Broad-Match – (simply type the keyword to make it broad-match) if anywhere in a search your words are found, your ad will be displayed. So, for instance, if someone searches for: why do people put stupid sweaters on their dogs? Your broad-match keyword for dog sweaters will display your ad. Now do you think the person who typed in that search is going to click on your ad or have any interest in your product??? Of course not. But he will drive your cost-per click up because he just saw your ad and didn’t click on it.
2. Term-Match – (put brackets around your [keyword] to make it term-match) this means that your ad will ONLY be displayed when that exact search is typed in. If your term-match keyword is [dog sweaters], the only time someone will see your ad is if they type in dog sweaters exactly as you have it in the brackets. Generally you can get lower costs-per click and higher click-thru rates with these type of keywords because you can target your ad to answer a very specific question.
3. Phrase-Match – (put quotes around your “keyword” to make it phrase-match) this means that your ad will be displayed in any search where your exact phrase is found. If your phrase-match keyword is “dog sweaters” then your ad would be displayed if someone searches for: sign a petition to ban dog sweaters. Again, not a likely customer for your business.
4. Negative-Match – (put a negative sign before your -keyword to make it negative) This is where you can really optimize your campaign to target just the people interested in your products. In the examples above for broad-match and phrase-match if -ban and -stupid were negative keywords, your ad would not have been displayed. Now there are potentially millions of keywords that could be negative so how do you determine which ones to add to your group? You use the free keyword tool we talked about in my last blog to determine the most common phrases people are searching related to each of your keywords. Simply type your keyword dog sweaters into wordtracker’s search tool and add negative keywords to your Adwords campaign for every search that doesn’t sound like a likely customer. For instance the second most popular search including the term dog sweaters is dog sweaters pattern. If you don’t sell dog sweater patterns you’d add -pattern as a negative keyword.

Track your results – This is the easiest one because Google provides you with all of the reports and graphs that you need. For the most part you only need to look at your click-thru rates for each keyword, each ad group and each ad. You look at click-thru rate for:

1. Each keyword to determine if your ad is catching the attention of people searching for that word.
2. Each ad group to determine if that overall group of keywords is adequately being addressed by your ads or if you need to break up your keywords into smaller more specific Ad Groups.
3. Each ad to determine which one had the higher click-thru rate in your split-test so you know which one to keep and which one to ditch for a better one.

Though learning and implementing all of these tactics in your Google Adwords campaign isn’t overly complex, it certainly takes some time and effort. After you’ve setup a few, you can easily go from nothing to a new account, campaign, half-dozen ad groups and dozen ads in half an hour. Make the effort to learn these rules and your business will improve.

To your Google Adwords success, Bryan

1. Traffic
2. Website
3. Commitment

We then reviewed the 3 primary ways to get Traffic and of course reviewed a video explaining some basics of Viral Marketing for Small Business:

1. Search Engines
2. Online Ads
3. Viral Marketing

This time around we’re going to take a closer look at search engines and, in particular, optimizing your website for search engines (search engine optimization) so that your website pops up as the answer to searches.

As with everything in life, there are dozens and dozens of things you can do to improve your business, cut expenses, increase profits, grow sales, and even optimize your website for a search engine. However, the 80/20 rule applies in this situation, just as in all the others, so we’ll just look at the top 4 things that will generate the most results.

1. Title Tags – The title of your webpage that shows in the top left-hand title bar of your web browser.
2. Keyword Density – The percent of times the keywords you’re optimizing for show in relation to all of the words on your page.
3. Easily crawled and indexed – Using Google Webmaster Tools to make sure your site is indexed and crawled.
4. Incoming Links – Google’s goal is to provide relevant content. So they theorize that the more people who link to your website, the better the content must be and so they give you better results on searches.

In the video I referenced:

Free Keyword Suggestion Tool on Wordtracker
Google Webmaster Tools
Merchant Circle
Google Local

To your search engine optimizing success, Bryan

Beyond that, you’ve heard a bit about Viral Marketing, Google Adwords, Facebook, Myspace, Digg, Twitter, Youtube, and have even heard that businesses are somehow doing free marketing with these online tools. But how can your small business benefit from this latest method for getting in contact with your customers?

As you know, I own a small business with the average ticket price for a sale in excess of a few thousand dollars. My business requires an onsite inspection and analysis of a prospect’s home prior to completing a transaction. So my business doesn’t allow for a direct internet sales approach at this point and quite frankly, that’s part of our Niche. We take the time to learn what you need because we’re the experts and you shouldn’t have to be.

So let’s break down how the internet can help small businesses by looking at the 3 pieces to an online presence.

1. Traffic – You need to get people to your website.
2. Website – This tells your story and prompts people to take the next step… Whatever that might be.
3. Commitment – This is the next step. Whether it’s committing to buy a product, contacting your for more information, or to schedule an appointment, as is the goal with my business, this is the most important piece. Another smaller commitment would be to simply capture a name and email address to keep them up-to-date on products, services, news, and even specials.

Traffic

For this blog, we’re just going to focus on getting traffic to your website and there are basically 3 ways to do that:

1. Organic Search – In other words people type in a search for a product and your business appears. This is often called SEO or Search Engine Optimization or Organic traffic. That simply means that your website is designed to answer the questions that people are asking. That brings up the question, so what are people asking? Well a great tool to use for optimizing your website to find out what are the most popular searches is located at freekeywords.wordtracker.com.
2. Online Ads – This is where you have to pay someone else to drive traffic to your website. The most popular way to do this is SEM or Search Engine Marketing. Whether you’re doing Google Adwords, Facebook advertising or the Microsoft Network, you’re paying someone to bring more visitors to your site.
3. Viral Marketing – This is your free marketing that has the power to expand itself. Well this can be a tricky one because there are so many ways and pieces to viral marketing these days… The video below will explain this key aspect to online marketing in a bit more detail

In my video I referenced the following tools:

Google Adwords – To buy keywords to market your website. This is paid traffic.

Twitter – Mircoblog (every post has to be 140 characters or less) to keep your followers up-to-date on the latest things going on at your business.

My Facebook Fan Page – Promote your business to all of your friends on Facebook… And all of their friends…

Youtube – Create your own videos to integrate with your content and to provide another way for people to find you online.

Digg – Submit a blog or article for people to “digg” if they like it to push up your blog or site’s popularity.

Reddit – Same concept as Digg above.

Shareit – Share your shareware software programs with the world.

Del.ico.us – Social bookmarking site that allows you to keep track of all of your bookmarks no matter what website your on. It also provides you lists of the most bookmarked sites to help users determine the best content.

Stumlbeupon – Helps you better navigate the web by you telling Stumbleupon what topics interest you and then others will “stumble” articles and blogs in those topics to provide the best content based on the number of “stumbles”.

To your internet marketing success, Bryan